Copyright © 2016 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance. Collen, W., T. Krause, L. Mundaca, and K. A. Nicholas. 2016. Building local institutions for national conservation programs: lessons for developing Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programs. Ecology and Society 21(2):4. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-08156-210204 Research Building local institutions for national conservation programs: lessons for developing Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programs Wain Collen 1,2 , Torsten Krause 3 , Luis Mundaca 1 and Kimberly A. Nicholas 3 ABSTRACT. For programs that aim to promote forest conservation and poverty alleviation, such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), the participation of indigenous communities is essential to meet program goals. Using Ostrom's theory of collective action for common pool resource management, we evaluated the institutions governing indigenous participation in the Programa Socio Bosque incentive-based conservation program in Ecuador. We conducted structured interviews with 94 members in 4 communities to assess community institutions for 6 of Ostrom's principles, using 12 measures we developed for the principles. We found substantial variation between communities in terms of their institutional performance. The best-performing community performed well (>50% of interviewees reported successfully meeting the measure) on 8 of the 12 measures. The weakest performed well on only 2 out of 12 measures. Overall, our results indicate that there is stronger performance for constitutional-level institutions, which determine who gets to make the rules, and some collective-choice institutions, which determine how local rules are made. We identified specific challenges with the day-to-day operational institutions that arise from participation in nation state– community conservation programs, such as restricted resource appropriation, monitoring and compliance, and conflict resolution. We found that top-down policy making has an important role to play in supporting communities to establish constitutional-level and some collective-choice institutions. However, developing operational institutions may take more time and depend on local families’ day-to- day use of resources, and thus may require a more nuanced policy approach. As some countries and donors find a jurisdictional REDD+ approach increasingly attractive, complementing top-down policy measures with bottom-up institutional development could provide a stronger platform to achieve the shift from current land use driving deforestation to a lower-carbon-emissions land management trajectory. Key Words: Amazon; common pool resource (CPR); forest governance; forest policy; Socio Bosque INTRODUCTION Agriculture, forestry, and other land-use changes contribute 24% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gases, the largest share of any single economic sector (IPCC 2014). Therefore, reducing emissions from land-use change represents a significant climate change mitigation option. One approach to doing so emerged in 2005, when Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica first proposed the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC; Babon and Gowae 2013). This was later extended under REDD+ to include conserving and enhancing forest carbon stocks and sustainably managing forests (Pistorius 2012). REDD+ is therefore a global environmental governance mechanism with the objective to slow and eventually halt deforestation and forest degradation from land-use change in developing countries by providing an economic incentive to keep carbon stored in vegetation and soils (Angelsen and Wertz-Kanounnikoff 2008, Skutsch and Van Laake 2008, Angelsen and Brockhaus 2009, Parker et al. 2009). Eliash (2008) estimates that global REDD+ investments will be in the proximity of US$30 billion by 2020, under three principal multilateral funding initiatives: the United Nations Collaborative Initiative on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (UN-REDD) program, the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, and the Forest Investment Program. Despite challenges at the UNFCCC to finalize a global REDD+ mechanism, the negotiations have been considered successful relative to other working areas of the UNFCCC (Grubb 2011). High-level discussions have triggered important developments in the global forest policy sector, including the implementation of REDD+ preparation activities at all policy levels (Pistorius 2012). Ecuador has responded actively, with the government demonstrating its commitment in line with REDD+ principles by making reducing deforestation a priority in the national development plan (SENPLADES 2008). Around 38% of the country’s land area is covered by forest, mainly Amazonian tropical forest (Bertzky et al. 2010). However, Ecuador maintains high levels of deforestation compared with other Latin American countries (Mosandl et al. 2008, FAO 2009, MAE 2011). High levels of deforestation and political will to reverse these trends make Ecuador a candidate that could benefit from the implementation of REDD+ activities (Da Fonseca et al. 2007). Working closely with the UN-REDD program since March 2011, Ecuador has been establishing the institutional, technical, and policy capacity (REDD+ Readiness) necessary for the implementation of REDD+ activities. Beginning in 2013, the Ministry of Environment has been steadily publishing legal norms that will regulate the future implementation of REDD+ in Ecuador, including a National REDD+ Program (PNREDD+) and Action Plan, a National Forest Monitoring System, and a Safeguard Information System (MAE 2013a, 2013b, 2014a). 1 International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE), Lund University, 2 PlanJunto, 3 Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies